Need help to emulate old forum

Mingalabar! (Myanmar hello).
Discourse is awesome and modern. It is the wordpress of discussion groups.
I created discourse server with the help of a friend on classicaltheravada.org.
I want to have it as a standalone site without a subdomain (which we did), but I want to have something similar to dhammawheel.com

In the dhammwheel website the header is more prominent, and it feels more like a page rather than a list of discussion threads.
I’d also like to have separated sections if possible.

I don’t want to maintain a webserver and a discourse server at the same time, especially since we are a $5 digitalocean droplet. However, is that possible on a 1gb server? I looked into LandingPage, but it seems to do too much for what I want.

I’d also be very happy if I can have a simple homepage, and then have a link to the discourse without a heavy web server or a subdomain and on single discourse server.

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If you are not expecting heavy traffic, a 5$ DO instance should be enough. Although I suggest you monitor it closely to make sure.

To modify the looks of your forum, use a theme or theme component. Check the theme category. Looks like this theme component would be a good option for you: Versatile Banner

Or you can create a custom theme, check: Developer’s guide to Discourse Themes

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Yes… we are already running on the DO $5 option. Gosh golly gee… if we get more than 30 members to sign up… we can think about a 2gb server. Even so, probably no more than 5 logged in at a single instance.

This banner thing looks like it might do the trick.
At first look, themes looked like it only changed the color maps.
I will have to look into this.

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Maybe you want to use “categories” instead of “latest” as homepage.

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Yes… this can help too. your input is appreciated.
Looks like both suggestions will complete my request if it works out in practice as good as it sounds.

Not at all. You can change the whole look of your forum to practically anything with a theme :+1:t4:

These two forums run on Discourse, and see how different they look:

More examples in Discourse customers | Discourse - Civilized Discussion

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yes… very different and exactly what I want… no… It’s more than what I thought was possible.
I added versatile banner. I will fix later.
Much appreciated.

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@cocococosti How does one do those circular icons that wyze uses for categories?
I tried to search for this but could not find it. Would this be from a custom component they made themselves?

I looked at the source to find the theme which helps in wordpress, but I could not see anything.

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That seems to be a theme component. It’s probably private and that is why you can’t find it. I am not a designer, but the icons look like regular images? you could make them from zero, or buy something similar online. And the outline circles could have been added through CSS.

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